After a small group activity, the class comes together to start their large group activity for the day. Photo By: Janessa Salazar

By: Janessa Salazar

Fun, learning and playing are all parts of a program that is hosted by the Plymouth High School Child Development class.   PHS hosts Playschool for children ages four and five to learn, play and interact with other children.

Playschool is a class that provides a learning skill every week for these young children. Then for more entertainment, the class gathers into one big group in the middle of the class period to participate in an activity. They go to the gym to do exercises, learning to play with one another. The students that are involved in playschool have Mondays and Fridays to plan and review for the three days they have the children. Then during those three days, they have a lesson that they will learn for that week. Sophomore Jessica Celmer explains that a regular day at playschool is that they “come in and we do an activity, usually crafts. Then we do a lesson [for that week], afterwards  we do a game or snack, then an activity with the whole class.”

On this particular day, the large group activity was to learn how to dance a special dance. Photo By: Janessa Salazar

Playschool is a part of fifth and sixth hour classes in Mrs. McNeil’s room three days a week,  from one to three in the afternoon. Playschool is a class that works on having a developing and learning environment for the children and is the part B portion of the child development class. They have activities like painting and building, to story time and drawing. “Each child has at least one student as their teacher  who does a game or snack, then an activity with the whole class,” the teacher that runs this program, Mrs. Jyll McNeil said. She also stated, “Everyday my students have to plan an individual activity for one child that they are paired with, and those range from anything between crafts to hands on activities to games and they also plan a unit. Which is a three day themed lesson plan they teach for the large group activity.” One of the children from the playschool, Annabelle Sherwood says that her favorite part of playschool is painting. They not only do crafts for fun, but they do something that is related with their theme week.

Each week has its own theme week. This week was wild animals and cultures. During that theme week, they learn things about the theme and make crafts and have fun activities related to it. Sophomore Lauren Page said, “ We come in and start the activity, then we finish this and start the group activity. Whatever our themed week is we have an activity to go with it.” Page also stated that last week was insect week so they made insects out of crafts. This week their class theme was culture so in their group activity they did dances and made their own instruments to play.

According to one of the children Annabelle Sherwood, her favorite part of the day is painting pictures with her teachers. Photo By: Janessa Salazar

Mrs. McNeil is not the only teacher that has run Playschool. The teacher that started playschool 28 years go was Mrs. Nancy Jaynes who taught at PHS for over 30 years. This Playschool is a place where children come to learn, have fun and get a special experience of what kindergarten will be like for them. For as long as it has been here, it has helped students decide if they have an interest in Child Development as a career and also gives them a learning experience to keep.